Writing Short

Last week, one of my fellow Tri Ms (Modern Myth Makers, the writing group that formed following NaNo last year) challenged me to write a short story targeted at a very specific line. I knew this would be something totally new for me, but as I had just finished my latest WIP, decided it would be a fun change of pace.

I think that was Wednesday. At that point, I had no idea what I would write about in specifics, but I had lots of ideas that had been on the back burner. Some were obviously not a good fit for the paramaters of what I was trying to write, but over the last part of the week, I knocked enough ideas together to start a spark, worldbuild a little, and get some idea who my characters were. I did not write a full outline, but I did jot down some very basic notes of what had to happen in the story for it to be, well, a story. With that, Saturday I began writing.

The word count goal of this story is 10-15k words. Now, as far as short stories go, 10k isn't that short. But, for me, to tell what I feel is a complete story, that is pretty short.

This story is written from two POVs and judging by the notes I made before I started, I'm guessing I will need ten or elven scenes to create a full story. Knowing that from the get go, I planned for each scene to be around 1k, give or take a few hundred words.

I've yet to write a scene under 2k. *sigh*

I get the feeling this story will end up under a very fine knife later. The good news is, this should teach me a lot about tightening and refining down to the essential story. It might be a bit of a painful lesson, but maybe a quick challenge is the perfect place for it. My plan is to finish the story, completely, by April 5th. Wish me luck!

If you read short stories, can you recommend a couple of your favorites? If you write short stories, what tips can you share about writing short?

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

GRAVE WAR is here!

The Revision Game, Part one--2nd drafts: The Big Picture

What's Next?